buy all the guru packages one can  probably spend no more than a few hundred.. and go through them all. 

We would like to get a loan to fix it up and use it as a rental, we’re really not looking to sell, but here is our problem.The house is in NJ but we live in VA, I have a short sale on my credit from 5 years ago and my brother has a few accounts in collections which is being paid on and only totals a couple hundred dollars.

I personally had clients that I sold duplex's to in Vancouver WA.. also buy 4 plexs in PHX and their 4 plexs went 100% vacant and stayed that way and they lost the properties.. 4 plexs they paid 350k for in 2011 were empty and trading for under 100k each.. it happened and again I am not predicting this at all.. lack of proper reserves Killed literally hundreds of thousands of investors in the GFC and rents DID NOT go up in all markets or many.. it might have in some areas but the 12 markets we were in that simply was not the case in and PHX for sure was not. 

I would say that our main goal is to have the financial freedom to be able to keep working in our artist careers without to do any of the other hundred jobs we must do currently to pay bills.  

The big selling point, according to the agent that helped us, was this place was listed and appraised as a single family and they were renting the lower unit for a few hundred dollars below market.

@Yonah Weiss as others mentioned there are people who own thousands or hundreds of houses.

As for property insurance, ask your agent, but I’d only expect it to go up by a couple/few hundred $$. 

Raise the rent a few hundred bucks on the best lease and see what happens.

No title companies pay over $150 and most of the work you will get is $50-$70 with some jobs being $90-$100 from signing services, which will take you weeks to sign up for a few hundred of them.

Fines can run into the hundreds of thousands with possible jail time involved with killing a protected species.